Until people understand that the internet is a new communication vehicle and not a new entertainment medium, success will continue to be elusive. The reason for this will become very clear as you read through this article.

It is not too difficult to see why many internet marketers insist that the World wide web is an entertainment medium - a development from TV. The typical person is more interested in the new offerings on the web that can entertain and less excited in the details of the enhanced communications capabilities this new phenomenon brings.

It is therefore not surprising to learn that the net is actually the first activity in over 40 years that has been clearly documented as something that causes people to spend less time watching TV. No wonder most people think of it as a substitute for TV.

But they have done this with disastrous consequences. Even as you read this, entrepreneurs all over the world continue to pump money into all sorts of advertising schemes on the net. Fascinating when you consider that the same people doing this hate to be interrupted by advertising when they're surfing.

I find it much more useful to think of the net as an improvement on the telephone. Then everything makes sense and any promotion on the net works like magic.

People hate interruptions on the phone from telemarketers. They prefer to call and ask about a product they are interested in and then to place an order using the same telephone.

If you look at the Internet as an enhanced telephone, rather than try to advertise through it, you will seek to advertise elsewhere (offline) to direct the people to contact you (by visiting your web site or sending for details via email). That's exactly the way it has worked with the telephone for decades.

Experts have already proved that although the web has not been a very successful advertising medium, it has increased advertising revenue for offline mediums like newspapers, magazines, radio and TV.

There is another very effective proven way of using this improvement-on-the-telephone medium to promote your business, and it works much better than advertising. It is by cashing in on the way most people use the internet. For years the telephone has been a valuable instrument for getting information. People looking for information have frequently made a few calls to get the info that they are looking for.

Being an improved telephone, the net makes that even easier. You use a search engine or you visit a web site and get all the information you want. You rarely look for information in online advertisements.

So what better way to attract attention to your offering than to provide lots of useful free articles packed with information that your target market may be looking for?

And the advantage of doing this online is huge. Offline PR articles will hardly carry the full contact or address of where the business or service being written about can be found. Online, a resource box will not only include contact information, but it can also have an enticing special offer or opportunity for the reader to seek more information via email. This way an article writing business easily and effortlessly builds up a valuable opt in contacts list. The list can be contacted later with information, updates and all sorts of interesting offers.

Having realized that the quality of their content is the key to success, web sites have been grappling for a low cost solution to keeping their content interesting, fresh and informative. They seem to have found the answer in offering to post articles free on their site. More and more web sites do that these days.

And more and more smart businesses need to take full advantage of this to get out the word over the net about their offerings.

One more aspect has rendered free article posting extremely effective. It is as a result of the fact that there is really very little well written material around, so any well written piece will quickly enjoy an amazing viral effect.

Here is how it happens. Most of the sites that post these free articles target web sites and ezine publishers who download and use these articles. Many of the web sites that do this in turn also allow others to download and use the same material. All with one condition, that they do not edit the article and that they leave the resource box intact.

The result is that a single article finds it way around the net to dozens of sites and ends up being seen by thousands and ultimately hundreds of thousands of persons interested in the subject written about and therefore very interested in the sort of products marketed by the person who wrote the article.

That is exactly how you make full use of the power of the net to advertise effectively online - and it's free.